


every minute of every hour

by dontcallmejordy



Category: X-Factor (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It gets pretty buckwild with X-Factor canon but just trust me, Look this fic is a very weird AU that came about because of a very weird conversation, M/M, Mojoworld, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, i think this ending qualifies as decidedly bittersweet tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontcallmejordy/pseuds/dontcallmejordy
Summary: “The rest of the team may not understand Cadre but that trick doesn’t work on me,” Ric snarled. “You were talking about what’s wrong with Star. Now tell me what it is so we can fix it and move on.”“It’s not that simple,” said Longshot.“Bullshit,” said Ric. “He’s sick.”-------Ric thinks he understands. He doesn't.





	every minute of every hour

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Good Grief by Bastille
> 
> I owe absolutely everything to chemicalengiqueer on tumblr for both the initial idea and then sooooo much help with the plotting of this fic.

\---

 

“And then I was on my way back here because...Well honestly...Because of **you** , Rictor. I just...my thoughts kept returning to you. To our friendship. It meant a great deal to me.”

 

\---

 

Ric managed to corner Longshot on his way to the kitchen. It was early and Longshot was still half-asleep, bleary-eyed and moving slowly.

 

He slammed Longshot against the wall of the hallway, threw his full weight against him and relished in the soft _oof_ that he let out. Ric could tell from the way that Longshot’s eye flashed that Longshot was letting it happen, but it felt good to do it anyway.

 

Ric could feel Longshot’s throat moving down underneath his arm, but he otherwise looked mostly unbothered. Ric felt otherwise. He was tired and sore from too many nights spent sleeping in chairs in hospital rooms lately. He was coming up hard against the very edge of his already limited patience. If Star was dying of some kind of crazy space disease, Ric wasn’t going to just sit quietly by and let Star deal with it on his own.

 

“You’re both keeping something from me. Tell me what’s going on,” said Ric, pressing his arm just a bit harder to make his point clear. “Now.”

 

Longshot just made a small choked sound. Ric let up the briefest amount and Longshot took a huge, theatrical breath in.

 

“We were just talking about—”

 

Ric didn’t even let him finish the sentence before was slamming his hand against the wall next to Lonshot’s head, hard enough to make the drywall shake.  

 

“The rest of the team may not understand Cadre but that trick doesn’t work on me,” Ric snarled. “You were talking about what’s wrong with Star. Now tell me what it is so we can fix it and move on.”

 

“It’s not that simple,” said Longshot.

 

“Bullshit,” said Ric. “He’s sick.”

 

“He isn’t,” said Longshot. “I didn’t realize it at first, I thought since—”  Longshot paused, looked at the ceiling like he was looking for divine guidance on whatever he was going to say next. “Mojoworlders don’t get old. We’re designed to look good on the cameras until we outgrow our usefulness. Once we reach the limit of our lifespan, our bodies start to degrade very rapidly.”

 

“So?” asked Ric. “Star’s my age, or close enough, we’ve talked about it before.”

 

Longshot shrugged, or as close to an approximation of shrugging as he could with Ric still holding him against the wall by his throat.

 

“Not anymore,” Longshot said. “He’s actually much older than any Mojoworlder I’ve ever seen, I didn’t think we could live that long.” Longshot sounded kind of awed, like he was almost hopeful about it.

 

“What are you saying?” asked Ric. “That all the injuries Star’s been getting lately are because he’s getting old?”

 

“Life under Mojo’s rule doesn’t usually lead to long lives,” said Longshot. “It looks like the healing factor wears out after a while.”

 

Shocked, Ric let his arm go slack. Longshot slumped against the wall, coughing into his fist and rubbing his throat.

 

With a yell, Ric punched the wall next to where Longshot’s head had been. He knew it was pointless, knew wasn’t going to solve anything, but the throbbing pain in his hands helped to quiet Ric’s racing mind enough to figure out what he had to do next.

 

Ric turned on his heel, and left Longshot without another word. Longshot called something after him, but Ric didn’t wait to hear what he said.

 

\----

 

Star was on the couch in the television room. He was curled into a ball in the far corner, knees drawn up under himself, arms tucked tightly against his body. He had that same rapt expression he’d always had when watching tv, ever since they were 17.

 

Once he was looking for it, it was plain to Ric how thin and worn out he looked. Star’s cheekbones were dark hollows, the skin stretched thin and pale. His t-shirt, one of Ric’s, hung loose. His hands, which now gripped the remote, had started to shake recently. A week ago, when Ric had first noticed, Star had joked that they matched. At the time, Ric had laughed.

 

“You  _stupid motherfucker,_ ” said Ric, storming into the room.

 

Star dragged his eyes away from the television with obvious effort. At any other time, Ric would have laughed at the shocked expression on his face. Then, Star closed his eyes and a look of weary understanding spread over his face.

 

“You talked to Longshot,” said Star, no hint of question in his voice.

 

“Yep,” said Ric, standing in front of Star now. “And he was saying all this crazy shit about—”

 

Any angry tirade Ric was about to offer was stopped dead in its tracks by the utterly devastated expression on Star’s face.

 

“It’s true, isn’t it,” said Ric, righteous anger replaced with a hollow rush of understanding. “He said that you’re dying of old age and it’s _true_.”

 

Star nodded.

 

Ric dropped to his knees on the floor in front of Star, searching his face for any sign that this was a joke.

 

“You told me you were—You said we were—”

 

“I was 19 years old when you last saw me in Mexico,” said Star.

 

“And now?”

 

“I am...unsure. I never expected to—I believe I’m somewhere in my mid-seventies.”

 

“Were you planning on telling me?” Ric asked, an edge to his voice. He knew it made him sound dangerous, a little unhinged. He didn’t care.

 

“No,” said Star, his usual defiant bravado replaced with quiet resignation.  

 

“So, what? Your plan was that you were just going to _die_? That was your grand fucking master plan was to come back like everything was fine and then just fucking die six months later with no warning?”

 

“I came back for _you—_ ” said Star, plaintive.

 

“Well congradu- _fucking_ -lations, I’m so glad that you’re getting what _you_ want out of this because—”

 

“Rictor—Julio,” said Star, glancing over Ric’s shoulder and making a tense shooing motion to somebody behind him. “Please, you’re making a scene.”

 

“I don’t fucking care. I didn’t care when I was going to throw myself off a building six months ago, either,” said Ric, practically spitting the words. If he’d had his powers he knew that the room would have been shaking and it only made him more mad that it wasn’t. “Did you just wake up one morning and think, ‘Julio isn’t fucked up enough let’s see what we can do to make sure he’s never able to experience another fucking moment of joy in the rest of his short, miserable life?’”  

 

“Julio, that’s not fair,” said Star, sounding quiet and hurt. And Ric couldn’t stand to see Star like this, wanted to scream at him until Star retaliated.

 

“I really don’t know what to think anymore, dude,” said Ric. “I only decided that I actually still want to be alive like a _month_ ago and now I find out that my best friend in the entire world—the love of my life, _probably—_ is only going to be around for another couple of months because you’re going to _die of old age_.”

 

Ric’s angry rant had faded to a kind of helpless despair. He was a lot closer to crying than he was to punching anything at the moment.

 

“Will you give me a chance to explain myself?” asked Star, quiet and fragile. Star never cried about anything but this was just about as close as Ric had ever seen him get.

 

“I can try,” said Ric.

 

“I would prefer that we not have this conversation in the den,” said Star carefully, like he wasn’t sure how Ric would react to the suggestion.

 

“Fine,” said Ric, standing up. “Let’s go.”

 

Star unfolded off the couch, still slow and careful. Ric had noticed, of course he’d noticed. But there had been time apart and their lives were dangerous. Ric had never known how to broach the topic and Star had never brought it up.

 

Now, he couldn’t stop looking for signs that he’d ignored in the last couple months. Longer mornings, earlier nights, shorter workouts. It all made such perfect, glaring sense in hindsight.

 

But watching Star walk and talk now, Ric realized that Star had been putting up a front, one that was clearly taking a lot of energy to maintain. Star hadn’t _wanted_ Ric to know how tired he was. The time apart was just a convenient way to explain anything he hadn’t been able to hide perfectly.

 

Ric felt like an idiot. A betrayed idiot.

 

\---

 

They were sitting in a coffee shop near the X-Factor building. Star was clutching some kind of enormous blended sugar and chocolate whip monstrosity because some things really never changed. Ric was drinking his black coffee and trying not to wish that it had whiskey in it.

 

They were sitting across from each other at the table, the silence between them strained. Ric was suddenly, deeply angry that all the casual familiarity that they’d so carefully rebuilt in the last few months was gone. Not just gone but erased.

 

“I wasn’t lying to you about being on Mojoworld,” said Star. “But when I realized that I was…”

 

“Dying?” Ric prompted, sharper than necessary but unable to help it.

 

“Ric, you have to understand,” said Star, and he was pleading now. There was thin, desperate edge to his voice that Ric wasn’t used to at all. It brought the practiced nature of Star’s deception into sharp relief, made something twist uncomfortably in Ric’s gut. Ric fought down the desire to get up and walk away, to go back to the X-Factor building and look for where the real Star was hidden.

 

“When I left Mojoworld you had been dead for many years,” said Star, picking distractedly at the seam of his coffee sleeve. “I didn’t hear about it until long after it happened, and it haunted me. I never...I never returned to Earth, I never felt whole again.”

 

“It became clear that I was dying. And I was so, so angry at the universe, at everything that had been taken away from me. I realized I couldn’t die without taking something back for myself. It was...dishonorable...but I have become selfish in my old age, I had to try—”

 

“To keep me from offing myself?” asked Ric. He knew he was being mean, could tell by the unhappy twist of Star’s mouth as he bit out the question, but he was too angry to care.

 

“I wasn’t sure how you died, only that it was sometime around now,” said Star, voice quiet. “I thought it would be sooner, but it was difficult to calculate exactly. I didn’t expect to spend so long in this timeline. I intended to save your life, to see you alive and whole again, and then leave to die in peace. It was...a fantasy, I can see that now. But—”

 

“But then you realized that the only thing you could save me from was myself, and the only thing keeping me alive was the fact that you’re sticking around, breathing down my neck all the fucking time,” said Ric.

 

Star looked guiltily to the side. “It was a foolish plan. I should have known that the universe would never let me have something so simply done.”

 

“And now?” asked Ric. “What’s the rest of your plan?”

 

“I don’t know,” said Star. “There’s nothing left of the anger that drove me here. I’m tired.”

 

“Yeah, well, you and me both dude,” said Ric, resigned now. “But tough shit, I’ve got a new plan and you’re gonna help me with it.”

 

\---

 

Once he actually decided to do it, leaving X-Factor was shockingly easy. It wasn’t like everybody in the building hadn’t heard their (Ric’s) screaming match in the den that morning, and Jamie didn’t look at all surprised when Ric came by his office to let him know that he and Star would be taking indefinite leave.

 

“You know you can come back whenever you want,” said Jamie. “We’ll always have space for you.”

 

“We won’t be gone forever,” said Ric. They both knew he was lying. Ric could tell, he just didn’t care. “I’ll make sure to write home.” Another lie.

 

“Be safe out there,” said Jamie. “Don’t do anything I would do.”

 

Ric just snorted.

 

\---

 

Monet came by their room as Ric was stuffing a backpack with clothes and important papers. She stood silently in the doorway, watching him, until Ric couldn’t take it anymore.

“Came to say bye?” asked Ric.

 

Monet scoffed. “Hardly,” she said. “I can never turn down an opportunity to watch the idiot patrol in action.”

 

“I’d say I’ll miss you,” said Ric. “But it would be a lie.”

 

“The feeling is mutual,” agreed Monet.

 

It was silent for a long moment.

 

“Just don’t get yourself killed,” said Monet. “I don’t want to have to save your idiot ass again.” And then she turned and walked away.

 

\---

 

They left that night, because there was no reason to stay and even less reason to wait. They were standing on the roof. It was pitch black and cold, and Ric scuffed his shoes on the pavement and rubbed his hands together, trying to warm up.

 

Ric caught a glint of light out of the corner of his eye and then Longshot was standing in the corner of the roof, watching them. Star put a hand on Ric’s arm to stay him and walked over to where Longshot was standing.

 

They talked in hushed tones, too far away for Ric to make out their words over the noise of the wind, then Star reached out and hugged Longshot tightly. Longshot hugged him back, and Ric thought his shoulders might have been shaking.

 

They broke apart and Star and Longshot both walked back over to where Ric was standing.

 

“Goodbye, Ric,” said Longshot. “I’m glad I got the chance to work with you.”

 

“I’m not going to hug you,” said Ric.

 

A brief look of hurt flashed across Longshot’s face, but then Longshot stuck his hand out to shake it.

 

“Look after Star, please,” he said. Star rolled his eyes, but looked kind of pleased.

 

Ric just nodded, thoroughly confused by the whole interaction.

 

“Yeah, man,” said Ric. “For sure.”

 

Longshot nodded and then left the roof, leaving Star and Ric standing alone in the cold one last time.

 

“Are you sure about this, Julio?” said Star.

 

“Yeah,” said Ric. “I’m fucking sick of having regrets and I’m sick of letting the universe make me its bitch.”

 

“Finding and placing you with my younger self has the potential to—”

 

“You didn’t care about any of this when you came back to save me. We’ve probably already made like, a thousand alternate universes by this point with all the changed futures,” said Ric.

 

“That’s not how—” said Star.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” said Ric. “You know where you were around now?”

 

“Approximately,” said Star. “I’m not going to be able to take us exactly there, my powers have weakened too much. We’re going to have to make the journey in several trips. It could take months.”

 

“Sounds like an adventure,” said Ric. “Let’s go.”

 

Ric reached down, laced Star’s hands with his and felt the familiar thrumming of Star’s power move through his whole body. He let himself savor the rush of sensation, the flash of light as Star’s portal opened in front of his eyes.

 

He turned and grinned at Star, a nervous, lopsided thing. For the first time in much longer than Ric wanted to think about, Star smiled back.

 

Ric tugged gently at Star’s arm and together, they stepped through the portal.  

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing is based off a very weird conversation that @chemicalengiqueer and I had where she said, and I quote: "maybe the mojo ppl are manufactured to not visually show aging so they just die all of a sudden looking like they're 25. That'd be...so Rough for ric." 
> 
> and I just lost my fucking mind at the possibility.
> 
> So then we just constructed a very elaborate AU in which Ric actually finds out about that. So there ya go. I have no further excuses.


End file.
